President Donald Trump suggested there would be ‘very severe’ tariffs of ‘100 percent’ on Russia if there was no deal within ’50 days’, as he held a briefing with NATO’s Mark Rutte in Washington DC on Monday.
“We are very unhappy I am with Russia but we’ll discuss that maybe a different day but we’re very very unhappy with them and we’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days, tariffs at about 100, you’d call them secondary tariffs you know what that means,” he said.
“I’m disappointed in President Putin, because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn’t seem to get there. So based on that, we’re going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days it’s very simple and they’ll be at a hundred percent,” he added.
The White House later clarified that the 100 percent would apply to Russia and that ‘secondary tariffs’ meant sanctions on countries buying oil from Moscow.